Towards a Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Association of Proximity

Abstract

The very title of this contribution gives the game away. We have purposely favoured the ‘Pan-Euro-Mediterranean’ stance, projecting ourselves into the future and taking as a starting point the hypothesis of an enlarged European Union, or one in the process of enlargement, envisaging its relations with its neighbours. We take as a principle a Europe reconciled with its history and its geography, which has refound its centre in welcoming the Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs, including the Baltic States) in their turn, and which has taken up a strategy of Europeanizing the Balkans in order to better counteract any possibility of a Balkanization of Europe. Thus, we take account of the relations to the South with the Mediterranean Non-Member Countries (MNMCs), already associated with the Community ‘in a spirit of partnership’,1 and to the East the relations with the countries of the post-Soviet space, members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), notably the countries of the western front from the Baltic to the Black Sea,2 liable in turn to be caught up in a ‘partnership association’ of a bilateral character. This new form of relationship could nevertheless be modulated, in the future, to the advantage of the Russian Federation, member of the Security Council and the undeniable power for the durable regulation of Pan-European problems external to the European Union.